Dear People of the World. Have you Heard of Credit Unions?

Banks are considering capping debit card transactions at $50 to $100 per transaction due to one of the new regulations that is most likely coming from the Dodd-Frank act.  The regulation will limit the fee banks can charge for debit card transactions to $.12 instead of the average fee of $.44.  Banks argue they need the higher fees to help offset fraudulent losses and to cover the cost of the infrastructure that they maintain.  By limiting the amount of the debit card transactions, they believe they’ll limit their risk.  For more information, check out this article: CNNMoney

This is just one of many new fees that banks are instituting in the wake of the new financial regulations.  They have also started charging annual fees for account holders that don’t have stellar credit and are trying out checking account fees of up to $15 per month.  I imagine charging for online “bill pay” is just around the corner.  Geesh.

Meanwhile, in credit union land, I’m still making money from interest on my checking and savings accounts and am not paying ANY fees at all.  The big difference is that my credit union exists solely to provide services to it’s members so it doesn’t have to show large profits to shareholders like the big banks do.  It’s just another example of why I will never use a commercial bank again.  Why put my money in an institution who’s sole focus is to return profit to shareholders?